Command line rendering newbie question

[user_deleted]

Hi,

Can anyone simplefy ( maybe it is simple? I can't tell...) or translate the manual or help files when it comes to launching command line renders? I'm sure it makes sense if you know linux, but I don't. I just need to have it spelled out - what exactly do I write to launch a render?

Thanks,

jon a

[deke-kincaid]

You should read this tutorial: "The Unix Shell for VFX Arteeests"
http://www.technolumiere.com/vfx/tutorials/unixShell.html

to render in shake, the basic command is simply "shake -exec shakescript.shk"
add a "-t 1-50" to tell it what frames to render, otherwise it does whatever you have set in the globals
add a "-vv" so it will print out in the shell which frame it is currently rendering
add a "-cpus 2" to use both cpus if you have a dual machine. By default the commandline render only uses 1.

The full command with all the options I explained would look something like this:
"shake -exec shakescript.shk -t 1-50 -vv -cpus 2"

[user_deleted]

Thanks for the help and the link.

I'm assuming where you wrote "shakescript.shk" I enter my actual shake script name? ( I told you I have no idea - your help is much appreciated!)
I've copied what you've suggested and am being told;

csh: /Applications/Shake/shake.app/Contents/MacOS/shake: Command not found.

Are there spaces between things where I've left them out or vice versa? I'd mess around but I don't want to screw anything up.

In the meantime I'll continue to read from that link you posted.

Thanks again,

jon a

[deke-kincaid]

I'm assuming where you wrote "shakescript.shk" I enter my actual shake script name?

Yes. though, make sure you are not including the "" when you write the command.

Are there spaces between things where I've left them out or vice versa? I'd mess around but I don't want to screw anything up.

What version of shake and osx are you running?

You should mess around and experiment, otherwise you will never learn anything. Why would you mess something up from just trying different stuff out? If you have to ask people how to do stuff every time because your scared of experimenting, it will take you a really long time to learn anything in the cgi world.

[mediasaurus]

Try 'Shake' instead of 'shake'. It shouldn't matter, but give it a shot.

The message is basically telling you that it can't find the Shake exec in the location it's looking for it. Try browsing to find the file and see if it's there.

[user_deleted]

Hey,

I tried the capital "S", no luck. I browsed to where terminal is not finding shake and it's definitely there where it belongs. I have several versions of shake on my machine (dual2 gig g5 os 10.3.9 4g RAM ) like shake 3 and 3.5. Ive done several projects in these older versions and since backwards compatibilty isn't supported - I've already run into a few issues with it in shake 4- I want to keep my older versions on my machine untill I'm certain they can be phazed out.

thanks again,

jon a

[cold-air-burns]

shake -exec ~/Desktop/fallen.shk -v

In osx 10.4.2 thats what I use to render out my stuff there is a space between shake and the - and a space between k and the -v and a space btween the c and the ~

so cut and past it. if you put your .snk file on your desktop just cut and past that but chage the file name and it will work...

your done

[deke-kincaid]

Since you have multiple versions of shake installed, it just sounds like the commandline might be looking at the wrong shake instalation. Look at creating a .tcshrc or an environment.plist file and define "NR_SHAKE_LOCATION" environment variable. Creating a .tcshrc and the .plist file is explained in the shake manual.

[user_deleted]

you pls go to your scripts by konqurer. then drag it to the command line. now you will know the whole path. so now go that path where your shake scripts are there.

then you type the command " shake -exec shakescript.shk -t 1-50"

if you have more files to be rendered, create a text file and type these commands one after another.
put the exact shake scripts name where shakle scripts is written in the command.
then save the txt file in the same folder where scripts are written and go to command prompt
./text file name - it will render all the 100 scripts you have mentioned in the text file.
make sure your txt file is executable.
any doubt pls let me know. thanks.

[user_deleted]

Thanks everyone for all your help!

I'm still not able to get it working. Again apologies for my ignorance and thanks for spelling things out for me. I don't really want to use the "desktop" method suggested unless I really have to. I'd like to just get this to work. Anyway, below is a sample of my last few attempts. If you have time take a look and see if there's anything obvious;

Last login: Thu Jul 28 11:22:52 on console
Welcome to Darwin!
thes:~ emb$ /Applications
-bash: /Applications: is a directory
thes:~ emb$ cd /Applications
thes:/Applications emb$ cd /Shake4
-bash: cd: /Shake4: No such file or directory
thes:/Applications emb$ cd /Applications/Shake4
thes:/Applications/Shake4 emb$ shake -exec 04x01_v1a.shk -t 1-55
csh: /Applications/Shake/shake.app/Contents/MacOS/shake: Command not found.
thes:/Applications/Shake4 emb$

Thanks again for all of your suggestions!

jon a

[deke-kincaid]

I already told you what you need to do, but Ill give you some more step by step instructions.

Open TextEdit and goto the prefereces. Change the "Rich Text" to "Plain Text". Under the "Open and Save" options, check the boxes for "Save files as Read & Write", "Overwrite read-only files". Uncheck "Add ".txt" extension to plain text files".

Now in TextEdit add the following:

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?>



MyProject
$HOME/nreal
NR_ICON_PATH
$HOME/nreal/icons
NR_INCLUDE_PATH
$HOME/nreal
NR_SHAKE_LOCATION
/Applications/Shake
PATH
/bin:/sbin:/usr/bin:/usr/sbin:/Developer/Tools:/Applications/Alias/maya6.5/Maya.app/Contents/bin:/Applications/Shake/shake.app/Contents/MacOS:

Now save it as environment.plist and copy it into a new folder called "MacOSX" in your home directory (Everything is case sensitive in unix, so make sure you capitalize those letters in the name). Now change the name of it to .MacOSX and the folder will dissapear (files and folder with a "." in front of it are hidden in user space). Now log out and log back in and hopefully your shell will run shake properly.

[user_deleted]

Ok, by the looks of your last attempts, it looks that your installation of Shake 4 is in /Applications/Shake4/

So, just try this line:

/Applications/Shake4/shake.app/Contents/MacOS/shake -vv -t 1-55 -exec 04x01_v1a.shk

By the way, if you set you environment.plist as suggested by Deke, you should change the path /Applications/Shake/ by /Applications/Shake4/

Alternatively, since your environment variables are already pointing to the path /Applications/Shake, you could also rename your Shake4 folder to Shake. Any of these options should do the trick. Hope that helps you to see what's going on...

[deke-kincaid]

Ahh, did you rename the /Applications/Shake folder to /Applications/Shake4? That would make sense why it's screwing up.